Couldn’t resist the temptation any longer. After reading such rave reviews, I had to see Spiderman 2 asap. The source I won’t mention but the print was just about ok.
Length of spiderman 2 is just about 2 hours. The cast remains the same with Toby Macguire as Spiderman/Peter Parker, Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane, James Franco as Harry Osborne and JK Simmons as Jonah Jameson. The only addition ( and subsequent deletion ) is Alfred Molina as Dr. Otto Octavius.
It has been about two years since Uncle Ben died. Peter Parker is living in the city and making some money through odd jobs and photographing spiderman. But leading a double life is taking its toll. He loses many jobs, his grades are falling, Harry has started to distrust him and he cannot find time to see MJ’s play. This stress combined with the knowledge that he was responsible for Uncle Ben’s death is resulting in loss of his powers too.
MJ has got a role in a new play ’’ The Importance of Being Earnest ’’. She knows that she is in love with Peter but with no response from Peter, she gets engaged to another guy, an astronaut who is son of Jonah Jameson.
Harry has taken over Oscorp. He wants to make it bigger and richer than even his dad ever thought.He has got Oscorp working on making nuclear fusion feasible, a task that if successful would most certainly result in Nobel Prize. The lead scientist working on this is Dr. Otto Octavius.
But the experiment goes horribly wrong. The nuclear fusion goes ballistic resulting in death of Otto Octavius’ wife and allowing the robotic arms to control Dr. Otto instead of vice-versa. These arms turn the good-natured doctor into a monster and he starts to build his lab again. For this he needs Tritium, an isotope of Hydrogen and he turns to Harry. Harry cuts him a deal. Alive, captured Spiderman for Tritium and Dr Otto goes against Spiderman. For what happens next, see the movie for yourself.
Spiderman 2 is the first superhero movie to focus on the human side of a superhero. The emotional turmoil that Peter goes through is the movie’s strength and weakness. Weakness because out of 2 hours more than an hour has been spent on developing this human side. Let’s face it. People watch a superhero movie not for the emotional angle but for the good guy against bad guys stuff. Peter Parker has been showed fighting all emotional angles - love(MJ), friendship (Harry) and blood relations(Aunt May). The depiction of these is quite good but slows down the movie.The special effects are good but I did not notice much improvement over Spiderman.
Toby Macguire is quite good as Spiderman. He is able to convey the internal turmoil that Peter Parker is going through. Kirsten Dunst has looked cute as she didn’t have many dialogues. Harry has been shown angry all the times except before the experiment goes wrong. But the crowning performance was Dr Otto Octavius by Alfred Molina. Personally, I found Green Goblin a it comic in Spiderman but not Dr. Otto. He looks more menacing than Green Goblin with his four mechanical arms. His dialogue with Peter before he turns into a monster was the highlight of this movie for me.
All and all, Spiderman 2 is different from the usual superhero movies. A bit too different for my taste. I still prefer Spiderman over Spiderman 2. But with all emotional angles solved, I only hope that Spiderman 3 will be more on action than on emotions.